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Scalloped Tomatoes

Layered tomato dish baked with butter, breadcrumbs, salt, pepper, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Scalloped Tomatoes

Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Scalloped Tomatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Butter the sides and bottom of a pudding dish.

Layer

  1. Layer bread crumbs in the bottom.

  2. Add a layer of sliced tomatoes, sprinkle with salt, pepper, bits of butter, and a little white sugar.

  3. Repeat layers of crumbs, tomatoes, and seasoning until full.

  4. Top with a layer of sliced tomatoes and bits of butter.

Bake and brown

  1. Bake covered until cooked through, then remove the cover and brown quickly.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Bread + tomatotop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,013 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Bread + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Bread crumbs
Absorb tomato juices and give the dish a soft, spoonable structure as they layer.
Sliced tomatoes
Release juice as they bake, moistening the crumbs and forming the sauce.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the top brown as the dish finishes.
White sugar
Balances the acidity of the tomatoes with a touch of sweetness.

The step that matters

Browning the top after baking. Covering the dish cooks the tomatoes through without drying them; uncovering briefly lets surface moisture evaporate and browns the crumbs. Leaving the cover off too long can dry the dish.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, bread, pepper, sugar):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits about as well
  3. Sweet potatofits about as well
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, bread, pepper, sugar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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